


What makes a superheroine

by captaindora



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Chloe is Queen Bee, F/M, i thought that maybe chloe isn't too good at being a superhero, just a little thing, not exactly an au since s2 hasn't reached this point yet, so there's a fic about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 02:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12471772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaindora/pseuds/captaindora
Summary: What if Queen Been doesn't do a very good job saving Paris and what if someone (spoiler alert: it's Nath) tells Chloé so, making her try to prove him wrong.





	What makes a superheroine

Chloé purses her lips, getting out of the car – she’s late again, since the class started about 15 minutes ago, and she’s just entering the building, but she’s not _too_ worried about it. First, she’s Chloé Bourgeois, so the important things can wait for her, and after all, how could anyone really expect her to be always on time now, when she has to manage both school and being a super-heroine? In fact, Chloé thinks, they could cut her some slack, maybe a couple of assignments or something – after all, she is now protecting them and saving their lives. But since she can’t tell anyone about this fact (what’s the use of being a super-heroine when you can’t even brag about it?!), she has to make up some excuse for Madame Bustier, maybe something involving her helping her dad with something very important, like –

Her phone vibrates. Probably another message from Sabrina. Chloé stops to read the message, when a sudden push makes her drop the phone and almost fall over.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” she exclaims, turning to the person that pushed her, indignant. It turns out to be a guy from her class, the quiet kid, Nath, and Chloé rolls her eyes at him. He’s panting, and Chloé feels some kind of pity mixed with pride. Poor kid, he’s so afraid of being late that he was running. “Thank god I don’t have to run anywhere, even if I’m late,” she tells herself. Having to worry about such things is below her, and this thought is really satisfying. Chloé tries so remember if Nath is usually on time for class, but she can’t. It’s not like his existence has really interested her before – she know who he was, but she didn’t notice him much – that’s just how the life is, some people are not that important.

Nath  mumbles, “Sorry,” still breathing heavily, and Chloé bends down to pick her phone up from the floor. Turns out, Nath dropped his sketchbook, making it fly open. Chloé shoots a glance at it, and suddenly something attracts her attention. She grabs it with a swift motion before Nath can stop her, turning over the pages.

There are sketches of all the superheroes – of Ladybug and Chat Noir, and the new ones, too, but Chloé turns one page after the other, and Queen Bee is never to be seen. Where the hell is the most important drawings, where is she, in all her beauty and glory?

Holding the sketchbook in front of herself in a gesture of accusation, Chloé looks Nath in the eye, demanding: “Where is Queen Bee?”

Without answering, he reaches out to take the sketchbook, but Chloé doesn’t let him. “Why aren’t there any drawings of her?” she asks again. Of course, his drawings are not worth her time, butshe can’t help but feel a pang of annoyance. Why would he draw all the other heroes and not her? Wasn’t she one of them, too? She was the best one, and she should’ve been the center of all attention, and he should understand this, too.

“Chloé, please give me the sketchbook,” Nath says, holding his hand out, with a somewhat irritated look on his face. “We need to go to class.”

Shit, she forgot about that. Still, no class was as important as someone having not appreciating Queen Bee well enough, even if that someone was Nathanael Kurtzberg.

 “Then answer my damn question!” Chloé exclaims, still holding the sketchbook out of his reach.

“Because I don’t want to draw her, that’s all. Now give it back!” For a moment, Chloé is so surprised by his words, she forgets about the sketchbook and Nath snatches it from her hands.

Obviously thinking that the conversation is over, he tries to move past her, but Chloé isn’t about to give up so easily. She stands right in the doorway, blocking the entrance. Now he won’t be able to get into the school without either pushing her out of his way or telling her everything she wants to know.

“Why is that?” she asks. Until that moment, she acted out of curiosity, but now it’s the question of her dignity, too. Nath not wanting to draw Queen Bee feels like a personal offence, and it is, so she’s not going to just let it slide.

“Chloé, please, I need to go to class,” Nath pleads, unsuccessfully trying to walk round her.

“Don’t you like her?”

Nath sighs, resigning. “No, I don’t.”

“Eh?” Even though she asked the question, Chloé wasn’t ready for that answer. “But how can you not like her? She’s so cool and pretty! Have you even seen her, she’s amazing! And her costume is so beautiful!”

“Being a superhero is more than just looking pretty and wearing a cool costume,” Nath replies quietly. “Though, I suppose, you won’t know,” he adds in an even lower voice, so that Chloé isn’t even sure she heard it correctly.

But she did, and she’s never felt some insulted in her life. She just looks at him, aghast, not even being able to think of something equally offensive to shout back at him. The only thing she manages to say is a puzzled “What do you mean?”

There’s more to being a superhero than looking cool and receiving everyone’s admiration? What else could there be?

“I mean that Queen Bee is useless,” he says, and Chloé gasps in indignant horror. “She just flies around, but when it comes to actually doing something, she almost never helps the team. I think that a person who cares more about looking good than about doing good is not a hero,” he finishes with unusual resolve. Him arguing with her like that was no less surprising than him having such negative thoughts about Queen Bee, and Chloé wasn’t ready for any of that.

“But maybe… maybe she’s just new to this!” she cries, finally regaining her ability to speak, though still feeling completely dumbfounded. “And… She’s just being clever, that’s all! Do you really expect her to risk herself for people she doesn’t even know? If someone like Chat Noir wants to be reckless, well, no one is stopping him, but some people are just more clever than that, you know?”

“But that’s what makes a hero,” Nath says. “I just don’t think she’s one, so I don’t want to draw her. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks so, Alya says the same on the Ladyblog –“

“But it’s Alya! She hates everything I d—everything I like!” Shit, Chloé, you almost said something you can’t say, and all because of some stupid argument with some stupid kid. Anger, shock, indignation and something like hurt make her unable to think clear, and the fear of almost making her identity known  to him tells her she must stop this argument before she makes things worse.

She moves from the doorway, letting him enter. For a moment he looks at her as if he’s about to say something, but then he just shakes his head and walks past her.

For a moment Chloé stands still, staring right before her but not seeing anything, but then shakes her head, as if that could make her forget this stupid conversation even happened. Why would she even care what this stupid kid thinks of her alter-ego, anyway? His opinion doesn’t matter. At all.

Only somehow it did.

 

“Why do I even care?” Chloé asks herself. She shouldn’t, what does Nath know, anyway. Yet his words don’t want to leave her mind, they keep nagging her, keep occupying her thoughts.

“Do you like Queen Bee?” she asks Sabrina after classes, deciding that she just needed another opinion, a better one, the correct one. Surely, Nath was the only one to think Queen Bee isn’t the best superhero to ever exist, and once she proves that, this annoying feeling would leave her mind.

“Yes, sure.”

See? Sabrina was way more clever than that kid. “And what do you like about her?” Chloé inquires.

“Hmm…” suddenly, Sabrina seems lost. “You like her and say she’s the best and I like her, too.”

Okay, maybe Chloé was too optimistic about Sabrina’s mental abilities.

“That’s all?”

“Well… Umm…” Sabrina starts mumbling, trying to come up with something and failing.

“Fine!” Chloé snaps, interrupting Sabrina’s line of thought. “I’ll ask someone else!”

She asks Adrien, but for some reason he hesitates before saying, “Well, she tries her best.”

“But?..” demands Chloé, because there’s a evident ‘but’ behind the tone of his voice.

“But I think she could try harder,” says Adrien, shrugging somewhat apologetically.

Chloé is surrounded by traitors.

 

Now there’s no way she can just let it go, and since Nath was the one who started it all, it’s him whom she needs to convince that Queen Bee – that she, Chloé – is the best superhero ever.

Chloé finds him in the library after classes the next day, and he jumps when she sits in front of him and announces, “We have to talk.”

“Chloé! Wh-What are you doing here?”

“Just told you, we need to discuss some things.” Chloé pauses, pursing her lips, because this whole situation is both ridiculous and somewhat unpleasant, yet she knows that this nagging feeling at the back of her mind won’t go anywhere until she finds out the answer. “So, since Queen Bee is obviously not good enough for you, what, in your opinion, makes a superhero?” she asks as nonchalantly as possible.

“Eh?” he says, looking lost and a bit apprehensive. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because I want to,” Chloé resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Can you just answer my damn question?”

 

Nath thinks for a moment, shoots a loving glance at the door. It’s rather obvious that he would prefer to be anywhere else but here, and so would she, but life is full of struggles, and he finally sighs, accepting his destiny.

“I don’t know why it matters to you, but Queen Bee just looks like…” he pauses for a moment, looking for right words, then shrugs “someone who’s more preoccupied with looking good than with doing good. You know, how she’s always somewhere on the sidelines, and doesn’t seem to care about people who might get hurt –“

Chloé interrupts him. “But what does it matter? I mean, even if they get hurt, it’s gonna be okay once Ladybug catches the akuma. Everything goes back to normal, so why should Queen Bee risk getting hurt for these people she doesn’t even know if she just needs to help Ladybug to get the akuma.”

“But what if Ladybug can’t do it? What then?” Nath asks.

“But she always does!” The thought of Ladybug failing is insane. Chloé shakes her head.

“Even if it doesn’t happen, people still feel afraid. And Queen Bee doesn’t do anything to make them feel more safe.”

 _Oh my god,_ Chloé thinks. _Does he really think I give a shit about them being afraid?_

Nath seems to read her expression right, because he continues, “Queen Bee needs to forget she’s the queen for a second and realize that she’s a part of a team.”

Chloé never expected a kid that quiet to have such strong opinion on things.

“But she knows that!” Chloé protests. “But her role is more… coordinating the team, you know?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Nath says, and he sounds absolutely unconvinced. “Anyway, it’s only my opinion, so why would you even care, right?” he asks, then gets up and leaves, just like that.

And his words mirror her own thoughts – why does she care?

 

When she wakes up the next day, she still cares.

And the next.

Because there’s a nasty voice inside her head that keeps asking: what if he’s right? There has been some things, some signs – so small, really, that she could ignore them. It was something about how the rest of the team looked at Queen Bee, with a hint of disappointment in their eyes, or about how sometimes Chloé felt as if they avoided calling her for help. It was her own slight dissatisfaction with the fact that the superheroine’s life was not as shiny as Chloé imagined it to be. Admittedly, Chloé has always liked being praised for things way more than actually doing them, and fighting akumas was less thrilling than writing autographs and giving interviews. But Chloé could ignore all this till now – till Nath said it outloud, and till he said it was actually her fault. Now it keeps nagging at her, and as Chloé’s mind turns to these thoughts again and again, it turns to Nath again and again, too.

Who is he to say these things to her? Chloé’s gaze turns to him over and over, as she is trying to understand why did his words disturb her? And that’s when she starts seeing him, paying attention to his presence, probably for the first time in her life. Maybe she’s trying to find something atrocious about him, some giant flaw that would invalidate all and any of his words, but she can’t. Yes, he’s shy and quiet, but she can’t really use that against him. The more she tries to disapprove of him, the more she understands that if she wants to silence that nagging voice at the back of her head, she’ll have to go the other way round – to make him approve of her.

The idea is almost insulting.

 

A few days later there’s an akuma attack, and as they’re fighting it, Chloé remembers Nath’s words again. _Queen Bee needs to realize she’s a part of a team_. But she knows that, Chloé thinks. The others are always ready to throw themselves at the akuma, so does she really need to do it, too? They seem to be managing just right without her, as always.

Only this time she feels like she must change something to ease her conscience, because just flying around feels wrong. So she engages in the fight, and it is way less pleasant than taking selfies with fans and giving interviews, and it’s not like she gets some insane satisfaction by doing this, but that troublesome feeling at the back of her mind eases off a bit. Doing the actual fighting is pain in the ass, Chloé thinks, but a part of her feels like she did something right. Maybe now Nath – and everyone else for that matter – will finally see just how cool and amazing she is.

 

She finds Nath the next day, determined to heal her hurt vanity by basking in his newfound Queen Bee appreciation – he’s in the library again, drawing something. As this point she already knows where to find him, and this thought would’ve disturbed you if she wasn’t so preoccupied with getting his validation.

She walks up to him and looks above his shoulder to see what he’s drawing, but it’s not Queen Bee. With a pang of disappointment, Chloé walks over the table, sitting down opposite him, and Nath looks surprised to see her, closing his sketchbook shut defensively.

 “So,” she begins, “have you seen Queen Bee yesterday?”

He stares at her for a moment, as if trying to figure something out, then gives up and just asks, “Why are you talking to me again?”

 _I wish I knew myself,_ Chloé thinks. She shrugs. There’s really nothing she can tell him to answer his question, so she decides to ignore it.

“So have you seen her? She was incredible, right? Are you impressed?”

Nath raises an eyebrow, but replies. “No, I haven’t. Chloé, what’s this all about?”

He hasn’t?!! Chloé feels like she’s about to shout “ _But it did all that just so you could see you were wrong and you didn’t even care?!”_ at him, but she bites her lips and tries to appear calm.

“Nothing, nothing at all. I just want you to give Queen Bee the credit she deserves. But how come you haven’t seen her? It’s been everywhere online, as always.”

“I don’t know, I’m just not interested, I guess.”

Not interested in her?! How dare he be not interested in her! Especially after she actually made an effort to impress him – stop, she tried to impress him? Him, of all people?

“But! But!—“ Chloé tries to find something to say, some compelling argument, but the words aren’t coming. She feels deceived, because she’s been thinking about his words for a long time, and she even did something to make him see she’s better than he believes, and he just doesn’t care about it? She feels like a child who was promised a present but ended up empty-handed. The hurt is real, and it makes her realize how much she was counting on his approval. She’s just standing there, blinking without saying anything, overcome with sudden weakness, until he breaks the silence.

 “What’s your deal anyway, Chloé?” His tone is unfriendly. “It’s not like my opinion of Queen Bee – or us discussing her, for that matter – means anything. I mean, you have your opinion, I have mine, and Queen Bee doesn’t even know about our existence and won’t care what I think about her.”

Oh, she knows about your existence all too well. Chloé takes a deep breath, trying to find some good and unsuspicious explanation for this. The problem is, it doesn’t exist, and it annoys her.

“Well, consider me her number one fan,” she says finally. “And know that I will not rest until you admit that you’re impressed by her.”

And she doesn’t.

 

It happens almost every day now – she finds him in the library after classes or somewhere else, and they argue. Or, sometimes, they just talk. And sometimes it’s almost nice, but then they are arguing again, and it’s during one of those times in the library when she suddenly notices how beautiful his hands are. She stops mid-word, because this – this is the most stupid thought she’s had in ages, and she collects herself and tries to forget about it.

At first he acts nervous around her, but as the days go by, he finally relaxes and she finds out, much to her dismay, that talking to him can be pretty enjoyable. Later she learns that he has a good sense of humor, and then she understands that she actually likes spending time with him.

It makes her turn greedy, wanting to spend more time with him, wanting him to wish the same.

One day he’s talking to her, but suddenly interrupts himself and asks: “Why are you looking at me like that?” and Chloé bites her lip and looks away, trying to hide the hunger in her eyes. She pretends it’s nothing, she pretends she doesn’t know what’s happening to her, she pretends like she’s not really looking forward to the time she sees him again.

She tries to disillusion herself, counting his flaws, but one moment she is thinking about how stubborn Nath is, and then, somehow, she’s thinking about the color of his eyes.

She tries to brush these thoughts off, but her mind keeps playing tricks on her. It just keeps happening – her noticing all this nice things about him, her liking all these things about him! It disturbs and annoys her, the way spending time with him is so nice, too nice, even, and she becomes angry with herself, because this is bullshit, and she’s not falling in love, she is not, she is not!

 

And then one day Chloé finally understands what Nath was talking about – being afraid.

It happens when the city is in the middle of an akuma attack, and Chloé is fighting when suddenly she sees him – he’s just standing there in the middle of the street, not running away, not hiding, just watching. And her whole body is suddenly cold with dread, and it’s awful – the fear clenches her heart with its heavy fist, it feels her lungs like ice water, making it hard to breathe, it turns her body weak.

As she sees the monster attack Nath, all of her past words about the damage being temporary, about her only having to help Ladybug to defeat the akuma, turn to dust. Her body reacts without thinking, out of fear, out of instinct. She’s glad it does, because her mind goes blank, consumed by terror, because if something, anything happens to him, it would be her fault, and her pain, too.

Chloé darts forward to Nath, grabbing him and trying to fly away with him, take him to safety. She feels a nasty sting in her leg – the akuma must’ve gotten her after all, but she doesn’t stop.

She puts him down once they’re far enough from the akuma, and snaps, “What the hell were you thinking, just standing there?! You could’ve been hurt!”

Her voice sounds unnaturally high, ringing with anxiety, and she’s almost choking on words, but Chloé does her best to control herself. She feels like if she lets her voice break, she will break, too, just crumple to the ground, defeated by the pain in her leg and even more palpable pain in her chest.

His face is pale, but he seems to be more surprised than scared, and it makes Chloé angry, because it was so stupid of him to endanger himself like that.

‘I… I…” he mumbles, then manages, “Thank you. For saving me.”

“I wouldn’t have to save you if you had at least try to hide or run away!”

Nath is almost unnaturally calm, and Chloé wants so grab him by the shoulders and shake him, to make him understand how much he scared her, how dumb he was, so that he would never do something like that ever again. But she mustn’t, so she just clenches fists helplessly, digging her nails deep into her palms, as if she needed additional pain to distract her.

“Sorry,” Nath says. “I’ll try to do better the next time.”

Chloé just stares at him, breathing heavily, avoiding looking at what happened to her leg. She wants to yell at him, make him understand how scared she felt, how horrible it was, when suddenly the pain disappears. She looks back, towards the place where akuma has been, and sees the damaged buildings fixing themselves. So they defeated the akuma, Chloé thinks, and a wave of relief washes over her. Everything is fine, the danger is over. Everybody – everybody – is safe.

Chloé takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself because her hands are still shaking. The level of adrenalin in her system is so high she feels like her blood is boiling, and maybe the stress makes her brain shut down for a moment or something, because she’s not aware how or why, but she does an Incredibly Stupid Thing.

She takes a step forward and kisses him.

Chloé feels the softness, the warmth of his lips, and it’s as if he has some strange magic of his own, because her whole body suddenly feels revived. But then she feels Nath, and she draws back before he can push her away.

For a moment she just looks him in the eye, her heart fluttering, her body almost singing with some amazingly warm feeling, maybe not exactly happiness, but close enough.

And then her brain finally takes over, and she’s panicking, and WHAT HAS SHE JUST DONE, and she needs to get out of here, immediately, and so she does. She turns and flies away, but not without a goodbye of sorts, because even in the most unexpected circumstances Chloé Bourgeois must have the last word.

Putting all the effort into looking calm, she smiles and even manages to wink at him.

“Bet now you’re fucking impressed.”

 

Chloé heads right home. Once she reaches her bedroom, she flungs herself on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to understand what she has just done and what she is going to do next.  

 _I shouldn’t have done that_ , she thinks, but she doesn’t regret that she did, not really. Her body is still trembling slightly, but she can’t say why exactly, because she’s feeling about a dozen of emotions hit her like a tidal wave. There’s still an echo of the fear she felt for him, and there’s relief, but mostly there’s embarrassment, and she buries her face in her hands, feeling her cheeks burn. But there’s also something else, something she can’t put a name on, something that fills her with this bubbly feeling, something that makes her giggle like a fool, but if this is how fools feel – well, she might consider becoming one.

And finally, there’s something more dangerous, something she’s unsure about – it’s the feeling of wanting more, wanting a real kiss, wanting his lips, wanting his touch – wanting him.

 

The next day Chloé is hit with one more revelation about herself – turns out, she can be shy when love-struck. Because she finds herself unable to even really look at Nath, least talk to him. Yet she is constantly aware of his presence, even though she doesn’t dare to even look at the back of the class where he’s sitting, as always. But it’s as if she could feel him with every cell of her skin, because even without looking she always knows where he is and what he is doing.

Her head is like a hamster wheel, or maybe a rat nest, too many thoughts at once and they won’t stop spinning in her head, won’t let her have any rest. She can’t go on like that, because with each passing moment her fears and anxieties multiply, but so do her hopes. So she knows she must confront him, and it’s so scary she can’t even eat and her hands start shaking when she thinks about it, but she has no other choice, she’s already too deep in.

Chloé spends the whole day simultaneously avoiding and stalking Nath, and then goes home and tells her tale of woe to her loyal teddy bear, which doesn’t really help, so she goes to the bathroom and gives herself a motivational speech in front of the mirror, which does help a little bit. And then she transforms into Queen Bee and goes on what feels like the most dangerous adventure of her life so far.

 

It’s only when she flies right to his window and knocks that Chloé realizes she doesn’t have any plan. But it’s too late to turn back now as Nath looks up from his desk, where he was, for once, not drawing, but reading something, and sees her. His expression turns to surprise and he opens the window to let her in. As Chloé flies into his room and sits on the windowpane, the weirdness of the situation dawns on her – really, who pays visits like that, coming through a window, and who lets people in through windows, too. It seems so ridiculous she can’t help but let out a nervous laugh, but Nath doesn’t say anything, he just stands there and stares at her, and the silence makes Chloé turn serious again.

She allows herself to look around for a couple of seconds, taking in the interior of his room. It’s messy, but Chloé can feel his artistic taste in the décor – some little touches here, the way the colors go together, it makes the room look nice. She doesn’t have the time to study it well, though, because the silence quickly turns uncomfortable and Chloé understands she’ll have to talk first.

“We need to discuss… things,” she utters finally and makes a mental note, _Think things over before doing them, Chloé!_

He helps her by asking a question.

“Do you know me?”

“Well, yeah,” she throws her hands in the air. “The thing I did… you know… it’s not a standard procedure with everyone I save.”

He is silent for a moment, mulling her words over, then nods to himself and asks another question.

“Do I know you?”

Oh, that’s a tricky one. But also that’s the one she came here to answer. She’s trying to muster the courage to answer it, as Nath keeps looking at her, and there’s no getting out of this one – well, technically the window is still open so she can just fly away, but that would be a whole new level of pathetic.

Chloé takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. What she’s about to do is too scary to confront it with her eyes open, for revealing her secrets has always been difficult for Chloé. It made her vulnerable, and it was the worst feeling in the world.

Her heart is beating too fast, as if it’s about to burst, as Chloé detransforms into her real self.

Then there’s just silence, ringing in her ears, and Chloé is waiting for something, but nothing happens, so she opens her eyes and looks at Nath.

He stares back at her, dumbfounded, and asks, very slowly, “Is this some kind of an elaborate joke, Chloé?”

She exhales with sharp pain in her chest, but manages to reply.

“No, it’s not.”

“Oh,” he says. “This is…” he pauses for a second, “unexpected.”

Well, this is not the best reaction, but it’s not the worst, either. And he doesn’t seem disappointed, so Chloé continues.

“I came here to tell you something.”

“What?” Nath asks, and he sounds to be on the good side of expectant.

“I think I know what makes a superheroine,” Chloé says. “It’s caring for others.”

This is not what she intended to say, but at the very last moment she got too scared to tell him what she really meant to.

Nath looks as if he doesn’t know what to do with her words.

“That’s nice,” he replies finally, and there’s nothing else to say.

A big part of Chloé is afraid. So afraid she wants to leave, because for all her life Chloé knew how to protect her heart, and she did it well, for her heart was such a weak, fragile thing. She knew she couldn’t let anyone touch it – or maybe even know it existed. But right now it doesn’t matter, because she knows that if she does nothing, the regret would eat her up alive.

There are things that are worth risking your heart for.

“There’s something else,” she says, surprised to hear how calm she sounds. “I like you.”

He blinks slowly and then looks her right in the eye, as if he’s not sure if he can believe her words. Chloé looks back at him, trying to convince him that yes, it is true, trying to convey all these new, unexpected feelings to him, and somehow it works, because suddenly he smiles slyly and Chloé feels her heart jump in her chest again.

“Well, that certainly makes things simpler,” he says finally, and before she can ask him what he means, Nath takes a step forward and she feels his lips on hers. All her fears and preoccupations disappear, and her head feels so light, and her heart feels so full, and she feels weak in the knees, but it’s a whole new kind of weak.

The best kind.

**Author's Note:**

> in conclusion this is trash but so am i and it's 2 am  
> yehaw


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